My name is Hannah Griffin, or for the next 18 months, Hermana Griffin! I am serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Madrid, Spain and I will be serving from October 2014- April/May 2016.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

New Years 2015 and missing American milk

NEW YEARS

For New Years, we had a sleepover with the other Hermanas. We had
to be in bed at 11:00 pm like our usual schedule, but we set an alarm
for 11:58 pm and then counted (is that how you spell that?) down the
last 12 seconds like they do here. You count down the last 12 seconds,
one for each month of the new year, and every second, you eat a grape.
If you do it all, the next year is supposed to be a good year, if not, a
year of bad luck... we´ll see! It was fun though, amd then we went back
to bed. Everyone does firecrackers for new years here, so all day there
were just like mini explosions everywhere. It scared me every time.

I
miss American milk... you have no idea. The milk isnt bad here, it´s
just different. You can leave the milk out, or you can refrigerate it,
and it´s exactly the same. Most people here cant afford being able to
refrigerate milk, so you dont have to. Its not creamy like american milk
either, it´s just kind of watery! Anyway, I tried to make potato soup
yesterday with it, and it didnt work like I´d hoped. Not bad, but not
good like normal... and you all know how much I love potato soup!

We
have been working with some investigators and we´ve been trying so hard
to get any of them to church... and no one comes! It is so frustrating!
But, we think the Lord recognized our efforts and gave us a freebie
yesterday. We were at church, hoping someone would come, and we got a
call from a lady that my companion and the hermana before me had met
about 9 weeks ago and never heard from since. She called us and told us she was in San Sebastian for church
and wanted to know how to get there! We´ve never talked to her! It was
amazing. Her Spanish isnt the greatest, but then again, neither is mine!
She´s super sweet and we´re meeting her this week!

Medio
Dia is our "free time" we eat, nap, study scriptures, do language
study, or go shopping. We cant go contacting or meet with people because
it´s everyone´s nap/lunch time and also, most stores are closed. But,
we keep ourselves busy, and it´s nice to have a little time to brush up
on Spanish and prepare for lessons that day.

I had the pensamiento espiritual for
reunion distrito this week. Presidente and Hermana Jackson decided to
come, so it was a little intimidating, but I think it went really well. I
talked about Helaman 5:12 and hope and faith being an anchor for us in
the gospel (there is a scripture, i think it was Hebrews 8:16 about hope
being an anchor for the soul) also I used a quote from a talk from
president Uchtdorf about the purpose of anchors and Christ being our
anchor... I´ll just send you all a copy next week becasue I´m not really
explaining it well in english... oh yeah, it´ll be in spanish, so Eric,
help mom out!

That´s about all I have time for
today, unfortunately. We are about to go to El Escorial for pday. There
is a big parade for la dia de los reyes magos.

Anyway, I love you all! I´ll write again soon! I hope you´re all doing well!